The Acer Aspire 8942G is a desktop replacement in an almost literal sense – you’ll barely be able to see any desk behind it. A gigantic 18.4in display means the chassis measures 440mm across and weighs more than 4kg, so it’s good for the occasional trip up and down the stairs at home but not much else.
Once in place, though, the Aspire rewards you with power. Despite the dual-core Core i5-520M inside, it scored 1.74 in our benchmarks, helped by 6GB of DDR3 and a 64-bit OS. It’s a fast consumer laptop, and should only fall behind quad-core systems in heavily multithreaded tasks such as 3D rendering.
Acer has also included a powerful graphics chip, with the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 averaging 49fps in our Medium Crysis test, and a creditable 20fps at High settings. With a few detail settings lowered, you may even get close to the display’s Full HD resolution in some less demanding games.
There’s the obligatory Blu-ray drive for entertainment, while the screen is superb, with a bright and even LED backlight, vibrant colours and a coating that’s glossy without being overly reflective. The 5.1 speaker set produces fine audio, rich and full at both ends of the scale and with impressive volume, all controlled by a sleek rotary dial and separate backlit playback panel.
The whole design seems to follow those touches: the power button is a brushed-metal disc with blue trim that lights up when on; a pair of tiny blue speaker grilles look like exhaust vents beneath the screen; and the rounded edges of the front of the chassis look almost like the front of a car. It’s all a tad over the top in true boy-racer style, but it somehow works on such a massive laptop.
It’s unlikely you’ll move from the mains for long, but battery life is better than you’d expect: we measured just more than four hours of light use, and almost an hour-and-a-half at full pelt. All of which combines to make the Acer a very tempting desktop replacement.
The styling won’t suit all tastes, but the 8942G costs little more than a grand, yet offers more power and entertainment features than you’d usually expect from a desktop PC.
Warranty | |
---|---|
Warranty | 1 yr return to base |
Physical specifications | |
Dimensions | 440 x 303 x 43mm (WDH) |
Weight | 4.200kg |
Travelling weight | 5.0kg |
Processor and memory | |
Processor | Intel Core i5-520M |
Motherboard chipset | Intel HM55 Express |
RAM capacity | 6.00GB |
Memory type | DDR3 |
SODIMM sockets free | 0 |
SODIMM sockets total | 2 |
Screen and video | |
Screen size | 18.4in |
Resolution screen horizontal | 1,920 |
Resolution screen vertical | 1,080 |
Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
Graphics chipset | ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 |
Graphics card RAM | 1.00GB |
VGA (D-SUB) outputs | 1 |
HDMI outputs | 1 |
S-Video outputs | 0 |
DVI-I outputs | 0 |
DVI-D outputs | 0 |
DisplayPort outputs | 1 |
Drives | |
Capacity | 640GB |
Hard disk usable capacity | 580GB |
Spindle speed | 5,400RPM |
Internal disk interface | SATA/300 |
Hard disk | Western Digital Scorpio Blue |
Optical disc technology | Blu-ray reader |
Optical drive | HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CT21N |
Battery capacity | 4,800mAh |
Replacement battery price inc VAT | £0 |
Networking | |
Wired adapter speed | 1,000Mbits/sec |
802.11a support | no |
802.11b support | yes |
802.11g support | yes |
802.11 draft-n support | yes |
Integrated 3G adapter | no |
Bluetooth support | yes |
Other Features | |
Wireless hardware on/off switch | yes |
Wireless key-combination switch | no |
Modem | no |
ExpressCard34 slots | 0 |
ExpressCard54 slots | 1 |
PC Card slots | 0 |
USB ports (downstream) | 5 |
FireWire ports | 1 |
eSATA ports | 1 |
PS/2 mouse port | no |
9-pin serial ports | 0 |
Parallel ports | 0 |
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports | 1 |
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports | 0 |
3.5mm audio jacks | 3 |
SD card reader | yes |
Memory Stick reader | yes |
MMC (multimedia card) reader | yes |
Smart Media reader | no |
Compact Flash reader | no |
xD-card reader | yes |
Pointing device type | Multitouch touchpad |
Audio chipset | Realtek HD Audio |
Speaker location | Front edge, base |
Hardware volume control? | yes |
Integrated microphone? | yes |
Integrated webcam? | yes |
Camera megapixel rating | 0.9mp |
TPM | no |
Fingerprint reader | yes |
Smartcard reader | no |
Carry case | no |
Battery and performance tests | |
Battery life, light use | 4hr 6min |
Battery life, heavy use | 1hr 28min |
Overall application benchmark score | 1.74 |
Office application benchmark score | 1.71 |
2D graphics application benchmark score | 1.76 |
Encoding application benchmark score | 1.53 |
Multitasking application benchmark score | 1.98 |
3D performance (crysis) low settings | 93fps |
3D performance setting | Low |
Operating system and software | |
Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
OS family | Windows 7 |
Recovery method | Recovery disc |
Software supplied | None |
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